The American military is the world’s finest fighting force. But how long can it defend Camp Pendleton?

Marine Base Camp Pendleton is a signature military training facility. But it’s also one of the most desirable pieces of land in crowded Southern California, and may be too wonderful for the Marines to hold forever. It’s the largest coastal open space between Santa Barbara and the Mexican border. At 200 square miles, it covers more ground than sprawling San Jose.

But Pendleton’s future has not yet received public debate and attention, even though it sits amid crucial contested congressional districts. That’s because Pendleton’s charms remain mostly hidden.

Many Californians think of Pendleton as merely the 17 miles of coast along Interstate 5 between L.A. and San Diego, but that’s only a fraction of a vast compound running 10 miles inland to Riverside County. The scenery is so diverse — mountains, canyons, mesas, estuaries, desert, lakes, a bison preserve and a free-flowing river — that it can feel like a militarized microcosm of California itself.

This diverse geography also explains the place’s military value. Camp Pendleton can accommodate a wide variety of training not only for Marines but also other U.S. military branches and civilian agencies. The grounds have prepared Marines who raised the flag at Iwo Jima, landed at Inchon, and fought in Vietnam’s jungles, Afghanistan’s mountains, and Iraq’s sands.

Tens of thousands live on the base, and the daytime population can approach 100,000, though people occupy less than 20 percent of the camp’s land, mostly near the San Diego County communities of Oceanside, Fallbrook, and San Luis Rey.

Those who live and work at Camp Pendleton lack for little in services. The base has a new half-billion-dollar naval hospital, car washes, a scuba center, movie theaters, a museum, a YMCA, the Leatherneck Lanes bowling alley, food franchises (from McDonald’s to a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf), a championship golf course, Lake O’Neill, fishing and campgrounds, 11 fire stations, five public schools, three chapels, two hotels, three recycling centers, 14 barbershops, and eight dry cleaners. The official base guide estimates the total value of land and improvements at more than $1.7 billion.

Pendleton has been quite an investment. The price of the land — a rancho that once belonged to Andrés and Pio Pico — cost just $4.2 million in 1942 when the military, seeking a training base for the Pacific theater, seized it. It’s named for Marine Maj. Gen. Joseph Pendleton, a Coronado mayor who lobbied for a West Coast Marine training base.

So far, the Marines have successfully defended the base against those most resourceful of California enemies — real estate developers. The military has made strategic concessions, allowing San Onofre State Beach and the now-closed San Onofre nuclear power plant to operate on the property.

Indeed, Camp Pendleton’s record as an ecological buffer has helped defend the base from incursions. Generations of Marines, sailors and environmental staff have protected 18 threatened and endangered species (notably the small songbird known as least Bell’s vireo). and revived native habitats, particularly near the Santa Margarita River.

“Camp Pendleton has proved that national security and natural security do not have to be mutually exclusive,” writes journalist Marilyn Berlin Snell in her smart new book, "Unlikely Ally: How the Military Fights Climate Change and Protects the Environment." She writes that Pendleton advocates for environmental protection off site, so the base doesn’t become a “last refuge” for species, thus limiting its flexibility for military training.

But having such a magnificent piece of land in the midst of Southern California seems increasingly provocative given the huge population growth on the base’s borders. The first frontal attack on Pendleton has come from San Diego businessmen desperate to add an airport before Lindbergh Field reaches capacity in 2035. Cal State San Marcos researchers found that the best place for an international airport serving the tri-county area of Riverside, Orange, and San Diego counties is Camp Pendleton. An airport would require less than 5 percent of the base’s acreage, and provide the area with at least 100,000 jobs.

Pendleton has fought the airport and Orange County proposals for a toll road through the base. But Pendleton, already traversed by three different rail services, could be a hub for any future regional transportation network linking L.A., San Diego and the Inland Empire.

In a state that lacks sufficient college graduates, Pendleton’s location makes it a tempting target for expanding universities. As California’s housing crisis deepens, how long before Pendleton is seen as part of the solution?

And in an era when wealthy private landowners deny Californians their constitutional right to coastal access, Camp Pendleton, as government-owned property, is a natural venue for a massive new state park or preserve.

The military maintains that giving up Pendleton land undermines its training mission. But now that wars are conducted by drones or online, how much does the military need Pendleton? Yes, the coast provides amphibious training, but there hasn’t been a major Marine amphibious assault in 60 years. And Camp Lejeune in North Carolina is a Pendleton-sized base that also accommodates varied training.

If Americans ever consider larger questions of debt, Pendleton could become a big target. Does the United States, with $1 trillion annual deficits and having spent trillions on Iraq and Afghanistan, really need a secondary land force training site on such valuable California land?

There’s also this unpleasant reality: Camp Pendleton serves a Commander-in-Chief who treats California like an enemy nation. A Time report said Trump has plans for detaining 47,000 migrants at Camp Pendleton under border policies, which include child detentions and systematic violation of refugees’ rights. If Pendleton were used for such outrageous purposes, California’s leaders should pressure the feds to leave.

The notion of a Camp Pendleton without the military might seem unthinkable. But so was the idea that the military would depart the Presidio in San Francisco or Fort Ord on Monterey Bay. Both have transitioned to civilian use in productive ways. Like them, Camp Pendleton is a California place big and beautiful enough to serve us all.

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square. Email him at joe@zocalopublicsquare.org.

U.S. Marines and Canadian soldiers participate in insertion-and-extraction training with a Canadian Air Force CH-147F Chinook helicopter on July 15, 2016, during Rim of the Pacific 2016 at Camp Pendleton, Calif.(Photo11: Sgt Marc-Andr Gaudreault/Canadian Forces)